"They're the kind of dames who can wear floor-length gowns and look completely naked. The kind with hair piled up on their head like compliant serpents, or falling down in smooth lustrous waves. Dames with hard faces and mocking smiles and eyes that sized you up and found you wanting… but you’d do, for now."

The Femme Fatale is sexyand sheknows it. Made famous by Film Noir and hard-boiled detective stories, she manipulates and confuses The Hero with her undeniable aura of sexiness and danger. Unlike the virginal and sweet Damsel in Distress (or possibly Action Girl), the Femme Fatale exploits with everything she's got to wrap men around her finger. (In some eras, use of make-up is a tell-tale sign.) He knows that she's walking trouble and knows much more about the bad guys than she should, but damn it if he can't resist her feminine wiles.

If the Femme Fatale is vying for the hero's romantic attentions she will likely have a sweeter and purer rival. The hero might decide that she's not worth the trouble she causes, but if he doesn't, then they might become an Outlaw Couple.

While related to The Vamp, the Femme Fatale is not just any seductress; she has a distinct look and feel. The main distinction is how she presents herself. If you know she's dangerous from the start, but she's sexy enough that you don't care, she's likely a Femme Fatale. On a lesser note, the Femme Fatale generally uses sensuality instead of upfront sexual advances. She may imply that you could have sex later, but she'll never promise it, not even say it—that would decrease her air of mystery and power. Her wiles may include apparent helplessness and distress, and appeals to the man's greed, desire for revenge, or gullibility, as well as the implication of possible romance or sexual rewards, while The Vamp more often reliances on raunchy sex or the promise of it sometime real soon.

The Femme Fatale is generally villainous, and heroic exceptions—in an artificial context to snare the bad guy—are closer to Heroic Seductress. Frequently, she is a Wild Card, changing sides according to her own desires and goals; she does not often go through a High-Heel–Face Turn.

Fujiko's fame reached a climax in 2012, when after forty years and much egging by the fans, she had a spin-off series that featured her and the rest of the Lupin gang as a series-long Origins Episode, similar to the Monkey Punch era titled Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

Bitch-sensei Irina Jelavic from Assassination Classroom. Before coming to class 3-E, she was a assassin famous for her Honey Trap method. Now that she is a teacher, she's more than willing to pass her skills to her students and at least two of them are already on the way to become this trope.

Barbara in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, specifically the Crashtown Arc. She not only used her charms to gain Yusei's trust, only to betray him later (and then offer to spare him if she willingly submitted to him, something he refused) she later betrayed her original lover, showing true loyalty — apparently — to her equally-rotten boyfriend (husband in the dub) Lotten, and was, like him, one of the few villains in the franchise incapable of redemption. (Ironically, despite the fact that she didn't duel even once — whether she even did that or not isn't even known — Barbara remains one of the most hated villains in the franchise by fans.)

Soti from Cyber Weapon Z left Park Iro for Leiting and at first looks like an indecisive Dark Mistress. However, she's not above infiltrating the Shaolin temple to spy on the man she once loved and gain information for her new boyfriend, but usually doesn't act directly against him out of respect for what they once had. Iro is often troubled by her presence since her sweet face and apparent harmlessness still get to his heart, despite the fact that she's a quite capable Dark Action Girl.

Bubblegum Crisis: In the public eye, Sylia Stingray is the modest entrepreneur of the Silky Doll fashion boutique. But, away from prying eyes, she's an alluring businesswoman who brokers backwater deals with wealthy clients and informants in high-level government positions, who also act as her eyes and ears against the Genom Corporation. And while she doesn't mind them looking, she makes it clear that her body is never part of the deal.

Rize Kamishiro from Tokyo Ghoul, a beautiful and sadistic Ghoul that enjoys preying on men. She uses her good looks to seduce her victims, often playing coy and innocent to draw them in before revealing her true nature. The story is kicked off when she appears as the mysterious and beautiful girl at the coffee shop that ill-fated Kaneki asks on a date. She plays the damsel, faking tears and asking him to walk her home because she's afraid of doing it alone… then attempts to eat him once she has him in a suitably deserted area. After being transformed into a Half-Human Hybrid as a result of receiving a transplant from her, one of Kaneki's primary goals is to learn who Rize actually was and what made her abandon her original identity and spend her life on the run.

Inari of Princess Jellyfish uses her good looks to bend men to her will. It doesn't work on Shu though.

Not surprisingly, due to its noirish roots, Sin City has quite a few. Almost every female character counts, and Dwight is the one that gets in trouble with them as they tend to go back and forth between Damsel in Distress and The Vamp. The most triumphant example from the series is in The Babe Wore Red. Dwight said it best:

Dwight: The moment I lay eyes on her, I know I'm in trouble.

Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (of Criminal fame) places a horror spin on this trope which also serves to make the femme fatale in question more sympathetic; it's implied that she's supernaturally cursed to forever remain young and beautiful, and the spell also works to cause men to fall hopelessly in love with her to the point where it leads to their own ruin. It's clearly established that she hates her life and the effect that she has on men, but can't escape it.

Films — Animation

The Incredibles has Mirage, who lures Mr. Incredible onto a desert island where the Big Bad can kill him, although she does pull a Heel–Face Turn and begins helping his family when her Big BadBoss's mistreatment of her goes too far. It is also strongly implied that Mirage feels something for Mr Incredible, even if she knows he is married and with children.

Frozen gives us Prince Hans as a gender-flipped example, and since this is Disney Animated Canon, he's less of a sexual example than he is a romantic example. He turns up in Anna's life, showers her in the affection and love she's been lacking all her life, and even proposes marriage to her. We finally see his true colors, though, when he tells her: "Oh, Anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you."

Films — Live-Action

Brigid O'Shaughnessy from The Maltese Falcon is one of the earliest examples in noir fiction. She's directly involved in betrayal, theft, and several murders all while trying to play innocent to (not to mention seduce) the lead character throughout most of the film and the book.

Kathie Moffat (no relation) from Out of the Past is the quintessential film noir example. She lies, steals, kills at least three people and conspires to commit another murder, uses sex to ensnare men to do what she wants, and she looks great in a cocktail dress.

Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct is one of the most iconic examples in modern filmmaking. No surprise, seeing as how the entire film is a 90's update on the Film Noir genre. She seduces both men and women to attain her goals, tempts Nick with her emotional vulnerability after Roxy's death, and probably committed all the murders.

Selina Kyle has always been a classic example, but the way Anne Hathaway portrays her in The Dark Knight Rises takes it to a whole new level. Suffering from a major case of Heel–Face Revolving Door, her tough, street-smart cat burglar is as elegant as she is dangerous, something Bruce Wayne both notices and forgets when he's in her presence. Director Christopher Nolan claims that he has always envisioned Catwoman as an "old-school femme fatale".

Summer in Definitely, Maybe is the sexually adventurous "bitch" that destroyed her boyfriend's career to advance her own.

Phyllis Dietrichson from the classic noir Double Indemnity. She starts an affair with Walter Neff, an insurance agent. Together, they convince her husband to take a life insurance, then kill him and Make It Look Like an Accident so they could collect the money.

Europa trilogy by Lars von Trier has two examples. Because these are Lars von Trier movies, both characters are examples of ruthless deconstruction of Femme Fatale trope, both utterly fail their agenda and turn out to be extreme versions of Jerkass Woobie trope.

In The Element of Crime, there is Kim, Asian prostitute, who slept with Serial Killer the protagonist is looking out for, and she tries to misguide the protagonist, but fails and, in the end she can do nothing but cry, when he watches how the man who was, in fact, her real lover and father of her child is hanged by himself.

The other example is Katharina Hartmann from Europa, who seduces the hero, makes him fall in love with her and maryy her, exploiting her image of Innocent Bystander who merely got involved with Nazi underground, while in fact she was a Honey Trap for the hero, and she drove her father to suicide, and tried to make the hero commit bombing killing many allied officers. She utterly fails at the end, and is killed along with every major character in the movie by suicidal bombing of the train by the protagonist.

The shade of Mal in Inception. She killed or tried to kill someone in about every other scene she was in, but she still gave the hero pause when he was faced with stopping her.

Tae-ju in Thirst, who seduces Sang-hyun, convinces him to murder her husband and turn her into a vampire, then turns into a gleeful killer.

Jessica from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She's a toon clearly created by some artist to be the perfect example, from her dangerous good looks and sultry voice, to the slinky way she moves. Even her smile is suspicious. It turns out that she's the Red Herring and was telling the truth all along. She really isn't bad! Just drawn that way.

Viper from The Wolverine, kills with a kiss… literally. She does know how to use her considerable sexuality as a weapon.

Naked Weapon is all about a Murder, Inc. organization that kidnaps and trains young Asian girls to seduce and kill their male targets. Their favorite method of killing the target is to rip out the spinal cord, which they can do in a blink of an eye. Often, they will first have sex with the mark and then offer a massage. Cue the spine attack.

Dr. Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. She seduces both Indiana and his father to gain vital information for the Nazi’s mission to find the Holy Grail. However, as the movie goes on, she pulls a Heel–Face Turn and helps Indiana by disposing of the Big Bad. However, her Redemption Equals Death, because, like most femme fatales, she couldn’t overcome her biggest Fatal Flaw - greed. In a Literal Cliffhanger, she thought she could reach the grail with a free hand in time for Indiana to pull her up. Unfortunately, he can’t hold her slippery gloved hand and she falls to her death.

Vivian, from noir classic The Big Sleep, is set up to be the typical Femme Fatale, such as being involved in several shady deals, gambling, and admitting to help cover up a murder all while trying to manipulate detective Marlowe into doing what she wants. Where the novel plays the trope completely straight, the film changes up the game by making her turn heroic halfway through the picture instead.

In Ex Machina, regardless of what Ava's motivations were, she does use her charm to manipulate Caleb.

Katherine "Kitty" March from Scarlet Streetand how. A model turned amateur scam artist, she wraps the main character around her finger with lies, faux sweetness, and alleged helplessness. Meanwhile she and her real boyfriend completely ruin the lead's life in the process.

Detour: Vera sees through Roberts' ruse and blackmails him. She insists that they should milk the situation for all they can, instead of trying to distance themselves from it.

The German movie Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer has a rare example where the Femme Fatale is also a guy. S/he is a male-to-female transexual nightclub singer who seduces a closeted gay public prosecutor so that he can be blackmailed by political opponents. Previously the singer's boyfriend had been arrested by the authorities for public indecency (homosexuality being illegal at that point in time in the 1950s) and she was offered a reduction to his sentence in return.

Literature

Rita, the sexy, deadly, devil-may-care manhunter from Put The Sepia On is named after legendary film femme fatale Rita Hayworth, and lives up to it.

In The Stainless Steel Rat action/comedy series by Harry Harrison, thief turned galactic secret agent 'Slippery Jim' DiGriz finds himself up against the psychotic (yet beautiful and criminally brilliant) Angelina. Jim falls in love and marries her in the next novel of the series. Supposedly, the psych-techs have straightened out Angelina's twisted personality, implanting her with a conscience, but there are times when her husband has to restrain Angelina's natural enthusiasm for torture and killing. Plus, Jim quickly learns the inadvisability of showing interest in other women, or trying to wriggle out of promises (an attempt to back out of their marriage is stopped by Angelina shoving a .75 calibre recoil free pistol up his nose).

In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Ghostmaker, Inquisitor Lilith actively tries to incite jealousy in Gaunt as a way to manipulate him. Gaunt calls her on it and tells her it's not needed, he will help voluntarily. She admits at the time that she's not used to voluntary cooperation and, later, when about to go through a gate to an Eldar craftworld, that she actually found Gaunt attractive.

Patience Kys in the Ravenor books by the same author is a heroic example; she is a somewhat hostile Ice Queen who tends to use her attractiveness to her advantage on covert operations.

Lara Raith from The Dresden Files. It helps that she's a succubus. It contrasts rather nicely to her sister, Madeleine, who tries to pull this off, bless her sordid heart, but really just comes off as a Vamp.

Not just Lara. The first time we see Mab, the Winter Queen, she is pulling the classic 'slinky sexpot asks the P.I. for help' routine in Harry's office.

Harry gets suspicious and manages to figure out what Mab is (although a Cold Iron test is how he was certain). Although it is more surprising for him not to be suspicious of Femmes Fatales.

Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice. She's married to an old Greek man named Nick who owns a diner. When Frank, a young drifter, gets a job at the diner, Cora starts a passionate affair with him, and together they conspire to kill Nick.

Homeland Security agent Cassandra Renaldo in the Dale Brown novel A Time for Patriots, who seduces Bradley to use against Pat.

Annabel St. Clair in the short story Amante Doree from Somewhere Beneath Those Waves — she's a beautiful, charming Louisianian courtesan-spy for the interests of the French government.

Subverted in Mr Blank: Our genre-savvy hero just knows Mina will betray him on account of her beauty, yet she turns out to be the most loyal ally he has.

Once again subverted in the sequel, where we have Heather Marie Tooms, former movie star and current assassin for a self-help cult. While she tries to be flirty (and she's certainly attractive), she's far too creepy and unstable to be alluring.

Lampshaded in City of Devils when the hero remarks, upon entrance of the femme fatale, Oscar-winning doppelganger actress Imogen Verity, "not only had I seen the movie, but it had starred her."

Surprisingly averted in the "Damsels Of Distress'' series of novellas. None of the members of the all-female mercenary gang are particularly apt at anything related to charming or seducing men. They are deadly, however.

The backstory of Harry Potter has Gellert Grindelwald, the greatest dark wizard before Voldemort, as a male example. By exploiting sexual attraction and feelings of love, Grindelwald temporarily indoctrinated Albus Dumbledore into his White Man's Burden-esque plan to conquer Muggles "for the greater good." However, like many female examples, Grindelwald wasn't purely evil, but instead misguided and capable of redemption. When Voldemort interrogated him about the Elder Wand, he refused to tell, presumably out of respect for the Wand's master — namely, Albus Dumbledore, Grindelwald's former target of seduction.

Gone Girl’s Amy Elliott-Dunne uses her sex appeal to manipulate situations, befuddle men, and also kill them while they're distracted. She sets up her cheating husband to be falsely accused for her disappearance, and even though she didn’t go through with it in the end, she still managed to escape punishment.

Invoked in Shaman Blues with Konstancja, whose looks and behaviour quickly make Witkacy start to call her this way in his head. She's beautiful, with black hair and long legs, she's his ex and is troubled by a matter she can't take to the police.

Joe Pickett: Stella Ennis in Out of Range. A Trophy Wife who is a lot cannier than her husband thinks she is, Stella turns to Joe to protect her against her husband's schemes. But she is definitely keeping secrets of her own. Significantly, she is the only woman to ever make Joe question his faithfulness to his wife Marybeth.

Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers is one of the earliest examples. Her beauty and cunning turn many men to work for her, such is the case of how she escaped from her imprisonment, seducing her jailor, John Felton, to help her escape and convinced him to murder the Duke of Buckingham.

Live-Action TV

Selena Coombs of American Gothic. In an interesting inversion, however, her primary sexual usage in the show, aside from being Buck's mistress, is not to turn a good man evil, but to keep a man nominally on the side of evil—Ben Healy—from defecting to the good.

Inverted by Spike (a knowingly seductive, platinum-blond male vampire), who tells Buffy that she belongs "in the dark, with me." Especially pronounced in "Dead Things," the source of the quote.

Darla is also one. She is very manipulative (for example, she easily controls Lindsey in Angel - who is a lawyer) and exercises sexual power over Angel. She's also something of an Anti-Hero, however.

Drusilla is a wholly villainous example. She appears very innocent and vulnerable (for a vampire) at first and often uses this to lure men into her service.

Faith, who serves as a Foil to Buffy herself. She would often use her sexuality to her advantage, e.g. she tried to get Angel to sleep with her which would cause him to lose his soul and become evil.

Sam Marquez on Las Vegas works for a casino. Specifically, her job is to keep 'whales' — big spenders — happy. Once, she only slept with a guy because he was dying, and she has openly called herself a slut. Strangely, she rarely sleeps with any of the whales themselves, and had to start going to a therapist later in the series after she was abducted and nearly raped and killed.

Dita Von Teese's character in CSI episode "A Kiss Before Frying" is a serial-killer that seduces Greg so she can find out more about the case, and she tries to kill him like her previous lovers.

Maneater Edie Britt on Desperate Housewives who seduces and uses any man she comes across, and she doesn't care if their married either. Special mention goes to Mike, Carlos and Karl.

Miss Parker from The Pretender. Makes her entrance stomping out a cigarette on an oil tanker, shoots at the good guy a lot, has UST with him, and regularly growls at and intimidates most men within range.

Dollhouse: Adelle DeWitt - charming, morally grey ballbuster who is equally at home with threats and seduction, and approaches Darth Vader levels of nastiness in the second season. She is. In. Charge.

In the episode "Noir", an episode with all the characters in a Film Noir, Lana takes the role of the Femme Fatale, having an affair with Clark Kent, an undercover cop, killing her husband, Lex, and framing Jimmy for the murder.

Cameron of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has more than once used her physical body's attractiveness to coldly manipulate people, up to and including John Connor himself. It is implied that this was, in fact, the entire reason she was built. Her external appearance was based on a girl named Allison Young, who was implied to be either a close friend or lover of the future John Connor, and Cameron interrogated Allison to learn her mannerisms before attempting to take her place.

A villainous example is Commandant Mele-On Grayza from Farscape. In addition to being very attractive with well-displayed breasts, she also secretes a chemical from a gland between her breasts that literally hypnotized men into doing her bidding.

On Weeds, Nancy may not seem like it at first, but she has this effect on men. They seem to be attracted to her despite the fact that she brings chaos to everything she touches.

The Shadow Line has Petra Nayler, girlfriend of the missing Glickman. She seduces the married Joseph Bede using her apparent helplessness, and is later revealed to have done this to Glickman too, under the orders of Counterpoint. Not only that, she only went to Bede to look for leads on Glickman's location, so she could kill him for trying to expose the conspiracy.

Katherine Pierce from The Vampire Diaries is a classic example. She's willing to seduce anyone that can give her what she needs, and the many, many men that have taken the fall for her over the past 3 seasons are more than happy to comply.

Saffron (or whatever her name is) from Firefly is a deconstruction of both this and The Vamp. She's sexy, smart, manipulative, resourceful and morally ambiguous (if not outright evil), but she's also a borderline sociopath with a lot of other mental problems who seems incapable of forming a genuine connection with anyone. Even the one of her many husbands that she genuinely cared for doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her.

Music

Calexico's "Ballad of Cable Hogue" has an Old Western version. She's only ever referred to as "Madame". Even though the narrator suspects that Madame will be the death of him, she sweet-talks him into leaving his gold with her for safekeeping. Then she leads "an army" to his hiding place and guns him down.

David Byrne's "Miss America" uses this as an extended metaphor for the US's foreign policy. America is a woman who seduces men then discards them when she no longer needs them. The narrator knows how dangerous she is, and he loves her anyway.

Britney Spears's 2011 album Femme Fatale played off of this concept, as did the accompanying tour.

Auryn's song Heartbreaker clearly is about one of these, who seduced the guys only to leave them high and dry. This is emphasized in the music video, in which we see the 'heartbreaker', played by Úrsula Corberó, seduce the five bandmembers and 'kill' them one by one.

Delilah of The Bible handily seduces Samson into revealing the truth about the source of his strength.

Venus of Roman mythology (and by the same token, the Greek Aphrodite) often got what she wanted through seduction. For example, she offered Paris any woman he wanted if he chose to give her the Apple of Discord.

Pinball

Bally's Mata Hari pinball shows the title character in her bedroom, handing over a secret map with one hand while discreetly clutching a small dagger in the other.

Francine would get friendly with the baby faces of ECW, such as The Pitbulls and Tommy Dreamer, become their valets, and then screw them out of title shots against their rivals when they least expected it.

Tabletop Games

In Rocket Age Princess Stephanika, ruler of the Martian city-state Melikia uses her charms to manipulate the many Earthling diplomats that come to her court. Rumoured to have used her sexuality to keep the various imperial powers focused on one another, Stephanika may be a relatively sympathetic example

Maggie Chow in Deus Ex. Turns out, she's actually in league with the villains and murdered the leader of the Red Dragon triad and stole his nano-technologically enhanced sword in order to initiate a triad war.

Olivia Ofrenda in Grim Fandango. She dates several men at the same time, and exhibits all the traits of one otherwise (true to the game's Film Noir influence.) Subverted when she helps the resistance against the main evil plot, but then Double Subverted when it is revealed she tore the leader of the resistance, Salvador Limones, to pieces and betrays Manny Calvera to Hector LeMans, who she is now also dating.

Ada Wong initially showed very mild Damsel in Distress qualities in her first appearance, but by the fourth game in the series, there was no question that she was a first-class example, to the point that it's clear in retrospect that her original helplessness was playact the whole time. Trying to figure out which side the girl is on and if she's going to help you or hurt you can give you (and poor Leon) a serious headache.

Excella Gionne from Resident Evil 5 is also an example, being Wesker's Dragon. An example that ends up being subverted: it is she who ends up being manipulated and betrayed by Wesker, who injects her with the Uroboros virus she created. Rather than a manipulative woman behind the man, she's actually just an opportunistic Rich Bitch who is Too Dumb to Live.

Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2 at first appears to be a femme fatale, but it's ultimately subverted as she quits Cerberus and makes no attempts at seducing Shepard. She actually tries to avoid a romance, at first, if a Male Shepard pursues it.

Ultimecia in Final Fantasy VIII is this. When she's possessing Edea - who normally wears a very simple and modest dress — she makes her wear incredibly ornate and over-the-top "sexy" clothing. When you finally meet her in person, the costume she has on is, to say the least, extravagant. She uses her body to get what she wants, and was openly called a Femme Fatale in the spin-off game Dissidia.

Viletta Vadim from Super Robot Wars, starting out as The Mole of the team for Ingram and is a deadly pilot in combat. This is later subverted as Viletta and Ingram have good intentions, despite coming off as rather strict and oh-so-much a Magnificent Bastard for Ingram, not flat out evil. Her looks also gave her the distinction of being one of Excellen's 'Three Beautiful Sisters' and the only person she'd goLes Yay with. To hammer it home, her theme song was re-named to this trope when Original Generation got a US translation by Atlus (it was formerly 'Woman The Cool Spy').

In Fate/stay night, the last Bad End you can get is called Femme Fatale, in which Shirou can't bring himself to kill Dark Saber, and Rin is absorbed by Dark Sakura and forced to experience all of Sakura's years of sexual and mental abuse. Forever.

In Thief The Dark Project, Viktoria plays this to Garrett's Noir action hero, tempting him with greed, the power of an exotic blade, and obliquely hints at the possibility of sex. Without Constantine's leadership in Metal Age, she becomes less this, but still remains Strange Bedfellows.

Sylvia Christel from No More Heroes, who manages to convince an impoverished otaku living in a cheap motel to use his laser sword that he got off the Internet to murder people. Granted, said otaku wasn't exactly a prince himself in terms of morality.

Carlotta Von Überwald in Discworld Noir, the extremely attractive woman who hires Lewton and who turns out to be directly or indirectly responsible for multiple murders, a Religion of Evil cultist, a werewolf, and the Disc's counterpart to the Femme Fatales in The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have NotandFarewell, My Lovely with elements from The Big Sleep.

Persona 5: Invoked by Ann Tamaki's Guardian EntityCarmen, who appears as an attractive women leading along two men with hearts for heads on dog collars and chains.

Web Original

Sahar of the Whateley Universe. She has spent several years seducing any mutant (male or female) with the right powers, so she can copy their best psychic traits. Even the campus Alphas and Intelligence Cadet Corps fear her.

Western Animation

While hardly alluring at ten years old or younger, Phineas and Ferb's Isabella Garcia-Shapiro played this role in the Indiana Jones-themed episode "Phineas and Ferb and the Temple of Juatchadoon". She even has a card that calls her such.

Blackarachnia from Beast Wars plays this to the hilt when she gets a chance, towards allies and enemies alike, though she does less flirting and more fighting than is usual for this trope. The choice of a black widow spider as her alternate mode is surprisingly appropriate, though she's not without redeeming qualities.

The Blackarachnia in Transformers Animated fulfills this trope whenever it's convenient for her, either with the Autobots or the Dinobots. Optimus Prime is especially vulnerable to falling for this no matter how many times she does it. It does make you wonder why she considers herself such a horrific freak, when everyone with a spark seems to want to jump her thorax. Probably because of her face under the helmet.

The Spectacular Spider-Man's Classy Cat-BurglarBlack Cat has shades of this trope, willingly flirting with and helping Spider-Man to clear his name, while using the same opportunity to steal jewels on the sly. Though the flirting stopped when her father (the Burglar who shot Ben Parker) decided to remain in prison to repent. She hates Spider-Man for this and will never forgive him.

Used in The Legend of Korra in the design of Asami Sato. With her long raven hair, beautiful figure, red clothes, fighting prowess, lack of bending, competition as Mako's love interest, rich and evil family she fit this trope like a glove. It was all a subversion, because she really was nice and caring, and not the double-crosser so many fans assumed she'd be based on her appearance. And she went beyond being a Romantic False Lead for Mako - she ultimately became Korra's love interest. Asami was originally written as a femme fatale Equalist early in development but the writers liked her so much they made her a subversion instead.

Before The Legend of Korra gave us Asami, the predecessor series Avatar: The Last Airbender also put a twist on this trope in the form of Jet, a sexy, charming boy whose used his outer seductiveness to blind Katara to his dangerous intentions. Like many female examples of this trope, he came to genuinely care about Katara, and ended up redeeming himself - and then dying.

Samurai Jack ran into this type of villain twice. (Demons and bounty hunters were easy for him; seductresses, not so much.) The first one was actually Aku in disguise, and it ended very badly for Jack. The second one was Josephine Clench, also a Dark Action Girl and half of an Outlaw Couple with her ex-husband Zeke. Apparently, her typical MO was to lure a victim into a false sense of security with her charms so that Zeke could attack by surprise, and then she could strike from behind when he tried to fight him. It almost worked on Jack, but the plan fell apart when she tried to double-cross Zeke. Possibly, something like this may have been why they had divorced.

Femme Fatale was the name of a one-shot villainess in The Powerpuff Girls episode "Equal Fights." She was a Straw Feminist who tried to indoctrinate the girls into "solidarity."

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